Gabriel de Saint-Aubin: Peintre, dessinateur et graveur, Vol.II, Paris, 1931, p.176, no.924a (not illustrated). The engraving, which measures 208 x 143 mm., is captioned ‘L’enlèvement des Sabines pendant les jeux publics.’ 2.
‘Excellent quand il observe, insignifiant dès qu’il invente, Saint-Aubin se montre encore à son avantage quand il peut enrichir d’un détail pris sur le vif le produit de son imagination. Nulle part on ne s’en rend mieux compte que dans une suite de dessins d’illustration, - la plus nombreuse qu’il ait donnée, la plus importante à ses yeux et celle qui l’a retenu le plus longtemps, - don’t on ne croirait pas, à première vue, qu’elle peut offrir le moyen de faire une telle verification: je veux parler des compositions destinées au Spectacle de l’histoire romaine.’; Émile Dacier, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin: Peintre, dessinateur et graveur, Vol.I, Paris, 1929, p.79.
3.
De Beaumont, op.cit., Vol.I, p.176.
4.
Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Le dessin en couleurs: aquarelles – gouaches – pastels 1720-1830, exhibition catalogue, 1984, unpaginated, no.61. The drawing measures 192 x 143 mm.
5.
Dacier, op.cit., 1914, p.89 (not illustrated); Dacier, op.cit., 1931, p.176, no.924 (not illustrated); Delaplanche, op.cit., pp.74-75, no.28. The drawing, executed in black chalk and brown wash and measuring 194 x 153 mm., includes on the verso an unrelated drawing of Jupiter and Venus in black chalk.
6.
The present sheet, and the other finished preparatory drawings for the Spectacle de l’histoire romaine by Saint-Aubin from the same collection, were unknown to Kim de Beaumont at the time of her 1998 thesis on the artist’s work. This would account for her comment that the ‘sketchy character of the very few surviving preparatory drawings for the series’ (op.cit., Vol.I, p.211, note 235) might be explained by the artist’s participation in the printmaking process, further noting that, apart from providing the drawings, Saint-Aubin may have assisted the engravers with the etching of the plates themselves.
7.
This may be inferred from an inscription on the artist’s copy of a book of poetry by Michel Sedaine, in which he notes ‘Manlius vendu à M. Philippe le 9 8bre 1761’, referring to his drawing of Manlius Torquatus Ordering the Execution of his Son from the series (Kim de Beaumont, Reconsidering Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724-1780): The Background for his Scenes of Paris, unpublished Ph.D dissertation, New York University, 1998, Vol.II, Appendix C, p.520, note 4).
8.
Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot [Piasa], 19 March 2004, lots 56 and 58. The two drawings, executed in watercolour, gouache and ink, measured 215 x 396 mm. and 208 x 392 mm.
9.
Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot [Piasa], 16 June 2004, lots 77-104. This group of drawings included Saint-Aubin’s design for a frontispiece for the book, dated 1766, which was, however, never engraved; this drawing is today in a private Canadian collection, along with one of the designs for the book illustrations (Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, From the Hands of the Masters: A Private Collection, exhibition catalogue, 2013, pp.72-73, nos.53-54).
10. A stylistically comparable study by Saint-Aubin for one of these illustrations, depicting The Reception of the Chevalier Bossu in Arkansas, is part of an album of drawings by the Saint-Aubin brothers in the Louvre (Pierre Rosenberg, Le Livre des Saint-Aubin, Paris, 2002, pp.92-93, no.28). 11. De Beaumont, op.cit., Vol.I, p.183.
No.21 Jean-Baptiste Huet 1.
Inv. D.76.27; Laure Hug, ‘Jean-Baptiste Huet ou l’art de la pastorale’, L’Estampille / L’Objet d’Art, March 1997, illustrated p.26; Couilleaux, op.cit., pp.84-85, no.34. The drawing, which is signed and dated ‘J. huet. 1767’, measures 277 x 410 mm.
No.22 Jean-Baptiste Le Prince 1.
Jean Chappe d’Auterche, Voyage en Sibérie, Paris, 1768, Vol.I, p.iii; Quoted in translation in Kimerly Rorschach, Drawings by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince for the Voyage en Sibérie, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia and elsewhere, 1986-1987, p.11.
2.
Rorschach, ibid., p.9.
3.
As Perrin Stein has noted, ‘Le Prince’s ability with ink wash [as a draughtsman] undoubtedly played a role in his contributions to the development of the aquatint technique in printmaking, in which areas of uneven ground are successively stopped out with varnish to create etched plates in imitation of ink-wash drawings.’; Perrin Stein and Mary Tavener Holmes, Eighteenth-Century French Drawings in New York Collections, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1999, p.122, under no.54 (entry by Perrin Stein).
4.
‘Douze petits Cartons contenant des Croquis faits en Russie, d’après nature’; Jules Hedou, Jean Le Prince et son oeuvre, Paris, 1879, pp.305-306 and p.311.
5.
Rorschach, op.cit., p.15.
No.23 François-André Vincent 1.
‘Cette scène totalement imaginaire paraît bien représenter un cortège funéraire, avec une pyramide à l’arrière-plan à droite. Le paysage tient ici une large place. On notera l’audace de la représentation nocturne, l’enérgie et la rapidité du pinceau, les forts contrastes d’ombre et de lumière. L’effet d’ensemble évoque certaines des plus belles réussites de Louis-Jean Desprez (1734-1804), grand spécialiste dans ses dessins des effets de nuit. Notons pourtant que l’artiste franco-suédois n’arrivera en Italie qu’en 1776, après avir obtenu le Grand Prix d’architecture.’; Cuzin, op.cit., 2013, p.352, under no.55 D.